Studies in Literature and History
chains, and from her nose was hung a ring of gold wire, on which
was strung a ruby between two grey pearls.'
But Bijli's intrusion into the harem is a grave breach of etiquette;
she is detected, and told to be gone, though the lady bears her no
malice. The incident brings home to her a sense of degradation; she
asks the Nawab to marry her, and her discontent is increased by his
refusal, until at last she escapes secretly from his house. The Nawab
follows, and finds her in a hut on the bank of a flooded river which
has stopped her flight; but after a really pathetic interview she
returns to her free life--and 'thus ended the romance of Bijli the
Dancer.'
In this short story, written with much truth and feeling, the style
and handling rises above the commonplace device of dressing up
European sentimentality in the garb and phraseology of Asia; and we
have, so far as can be judged, a fairly real picture of the inner and
the emotional side of native life in India, sufficiently tinged with
romantic colouring. The fascination which professional dancers often
exercise over natives of the highest rank is a well-known feature of
Indian society; and although the dancer is always a courtesan, yet to
invest her with a capacity for tender and honourable affection is by
no means to overstep the limits of probability. We have noticed this
book because it proves that the study of native manners, and
sympathetic insight into their feelings and character, still survive
among Anglo-Indians, albeit officials; and because it stands out in
quiet relief among tales of fierce wars and savage mutiny; it neither
chronicles the heroic deeds of Englishmen, nor does it devote even a
single page to the loves, sorrows, or comic misadventures that break
the monotony of a British cantonment.
_The Chronicles of Dustypore_, by H. S. Cunningham, takes us back
again from the sombre, half-veiled interior of an Indian household,
into the fierce light which beats upon English society at some station
in the sun-dried plains of the Punjab. We have here a sketch, half
satirical, half in earnest, of official work and ways, with one or two
personages that can be easily identified from among the provincial
notabilities of twenty years ago. The book, which had considerable
success in its time, will still provide interest and amusement for
those who enjoy an exceedingly clever delineation of familiar scenes
and characters; and it is in the main as true and lively a picture of
Anglo-Indian life as when it was first written. Here is the summer
landscape of the Sandy Tracts, a region just annexed to British
administration after the usual skirmish with, and discomfiture of, the
native ruler:
'Vast plains, a dead level but for an occasional clump of palms or
the dome of some despoiled and crumbling tomb, stretched away on
every side and ended in a hazy, quivering horizon that spoke of
infinite heat. Over these ranged herds of cattle and goats,
browsing on no one could see what; or bewildered buffaloes would
lie, panting and contented, in some muddy pool, with little but
horns, eyes, and nostrils exposed above the surface. Little
ill-begotten stunted plants worked hard to live and grow and to
weather the roaring fierce winds. The crows sat gasping,
open-beaked, as if protesting against having been born into so
sulphurous an existence. Here and there a well, with its huge
lumbering wheel and patient bullocks, went creaking and groaning
night and day, as if earth grudged the tiny rivulet coming so
toilfully from her dry breast, and gave it up with sighs of pain.
The sky was cloudless, pitiless, brazen. The sun rose into it
without a single fleck of vapour to mitigate its fierceness ... all
day it shone and glistened and blazed, until the very earth seemed
to crack with heat and the mere thought of it was pain.'
Such is the environment in which many English officers live and labour
for years; and this is the side of Anglo-Indian existence that is
unknown to, and consequently unappreciated by, the rapid tourist, who
runs by railway from one town to another during the bright cold winter
months, is delighted with the climate and the country, takes note of
the deficiencies or peculiarities of Anglo-Indians, and has a very
short memory for their hospitality. The narrative carries us, as a
matter of course, to a Himalayan Elysium, with its balls, picnics, and
its flirtations, among which the leading lady of the piece is drawn to
the brink of indiscretion, but steps happily back again into the
secure haven of domestic felicity. A good deal of excellent light
comedy and sparkling dialogue will always maintain for this novel a
creditable place upon the Indian list; and as an indirect illustration
of the social wall that separates ordinary English folk from the
population which surrounds them, it is complete, since we have here a
story plotted out upon the stage of a great Indian province which
contains absolutely no mention of the natives beyond occasional
necessary reference to the servants.
For a strong contrast to _Dustypore_, both in subject and style of
treatment, we may take a story which merits notice, even though it be
hardly long enough to be ranked among Indian novels. _The Bond of
Blood_, by R. E. Forrest (1896), draws, like _Bijli the Dancer_, its
incidents and their environment exclusively from Indian life; and the
book may be placed high in this class of difficult work, which few
have ventured to attempt, and where success has been very rare. It is
a study of peculiarly local manners, that may be also called
contemporary; for though the period belongs to the early years of this
century, yet the sure drawing from life of a skilful hand may still be
verified by those readers who actually know the customs and feelings
at the present day of the Rajput clans, among whom primitive ideas and
institutions have been less obliterated in the independent States than
in any other region of India. The descriptive and personal sketches
attest the writer's gift of close observation; there is good
workmanship in all the details; his sentences hit the mark and are
never overcharged or superfluous. The tale is of a dissipated Rajput
chief, to whom a moneylender has lent a large sum upon a bond which
has been endorsed by the sign-manual of the family Bhat, or hereditary
bard, herald, and genealogist--an office of great repute and
importance in every noble Rajput house. Debauchees and cunning
gamblers empty the chief's purse; the moneylender, an honest man
enough in his way, is obliged to press him for the sum due; until at
last the bewildered chief is persuaded by one of the gamblers to
declare flatly that he will not pay at all, whereupon the creditor
falls back upon the surety. Now the Bhat has pledged upon the bond not
his property but his life, according to an ancient and authentic
custom among Rajput folk, as formerly throughout India, whereby a man
who has no other means of enforcing a just claim against a powerful
debtor has always the resource of bringing down upon him a fearful
curse by committing suicide before his door. The Rajput chief pretends
that the bond is illegal and void, being founded upon an obsolete
custom disallowed by the English rulers; but in truth he has brought
himself to believe that the blood penalty will not really be paid, and
he is struck with horror when the Bhat, after formal and public
warning, stabs his own mother in the chief's presence, whereupon the
curse falls and clings to the family. We may add that the substitution
of the Bhat's mother for himself as an expiatory victim is in
accordance with accepted precedents on such occasions, while it makes
room for a pathetic situation, and greatly enhances the dramatic
interest of the closing scene. Here we have the antique Oriental
version of the story in Shakespeare's _Merchant of Venice_, where
Shylock takes the same kind of security from Antonio, upon whose
person he subsequently demands execution of his bond of blood; nor
does the law refuse it to him. But the Hindu custom is so far milder
than the Venetian code that the Rajput Shylock could not have rejected
a tender of full payment in cash. Mr. Forrest's tale might be turned
into an effective stage-tragedy if the main incident were not too
shockingly improbable for Europeans, although to an Indian audience it
would be credible enough. The final scene of the mother's death is
stamped on the reader's imagination by the writer's power of giving
intense significance not only to the speech but to slight movements of
the actors, so that the mental picture becomes almost objective, while
the strained expectation of the crowd makes itself felt by the force
of the words.
'"Will you redeem the bond?" asks the herald once more.
'"Say 'No,'" exclaims Takht Singh.
'"No," shouts Hurdeo Singh (the chief).
'"Then blood must be shed at your door, and the life forfeit paid
at your threshold, so that the curse may alight upon you and your
house."
'He draws the dagger from its sheath. He had not laid his hand
upon its handle in the same manner that he would have laid it on
the hilt of his sword, but the reverse way to that; he puts the
palm of his hand under it and not over it, so he could best use it
in the way he intended to use it--so could he best strike the blow
he meant to strike.
'"Begone! Begone!" shouts Hurdeo Singh, waving him away with his
hand.
'The people around stand fixed as statues, eyes straining, necks
craning. The herald stretches his left arm behind his mother, and
she, throwing open her _chudder_, leans back against it....
'The money-lender had given a sudden cry, stretched out his hand,
uttered some words.
'When Hurdeo Singh had beheld the herald raise his right arm, his
own had gone up with it, and from his mouth had come the cry,
"Don't! Don't."
'But it was too late. The herald had raised his arm, turned round
his head, and plunged the sharp stiletto into his mother's breast.'
It would be scarcely possible in an article that ranges over the light
literature of Anglo-India to omit mentioning the name of Mr. Rudyard
Kipling, who is the most prominent and by far the most popular of
Anglo-Indian authors. Yet our reference to his writings must be very
brief, since most of them lie beyond the scope of our present subject;
for although Mr. Kipling's short stories are famous, and he is a
consummate artist in black and white, yet in the complete edition of
his volumes up to date there is, in fact, but one full-sized Indian
novel, and for this he is only responsible in part. Nor, assuming that
the Indian chapters of the _Naulakha_[14] may be ascribed to him,
would it be fair criticism to treat them as good samples of his work,
or as illustrating his distinctive genius. The attempt in this story
to bring together West and East, and to strike bold contrasts by
setting down a Yankee fresh from Colorado before the palace gate of a
Maharaja in the sands of western Rajputana, is too daring a venture;
and the plot's development, though here and there are some touches of
true vision and some vigorous passages, labours under the weight of
its extravagant improbability. The American's restless energy, brought
face to face with Oriental immobility, expresses itself in the
following way:
'It made him tired to see the fixedness, the apathy, and
lifelessness of this rich and populous world, which should be up
and stirring by rights--trading, organising, inventing, building
new towns, making the old ones keep up with the procession, laying